Samsung Galaxy A32 5G review

Android 11 with One UI 3.1

It is hardly a secret that a lot of the appeal with Samsung devices lies in the software. Of course, it's not a universal appeal, but there is a reason why One UI is one of the most popular custom Android implementations out there and has been so for quite some time. For many users, the added value proposition of a Samsung phone lies precisely in the software and ecosystem.

In keeping with its new "Awesome is for everyone" slogan, the Korean giant is significantly stepping up its software game with the new Galaxy A family of devices. That includes the Galaxy A32 5G.

For the most part, the A32 5G gets the same set of features as its Galaxy A52 and A72 siblings, with just a few minor omissions here and there. But even so, the amount of features you get is pretty amazing for a budget device.

Right off the bat, the A32 5G ships with the latest One UI 3.1 and Android 11 setup out-of-the-box. There aren't too many massive differences between One UI 3.1 and its recent predecessors, like 3.0 and 2.5. Still, there are some subtle differences worth going over.

More important still - Samsung has committed to delivering 3 major OS updates and 4 years of security patches. This is actually a fairly new development for Samsung.

For example, the default lock screen shortcuts - dialer and camera, are now monochrome - they used to match the respective apps' colors. Oddly enough, if you pick different apps, they will keep their colors - it's not a first-party vs. third-party type of differentiation either.

As more of a functional change - the lock screen has a wellbeing widget - you can now keep track of how much time you've spent on your phone without even unlocking it.

Lock screen, shortcuts and widgets

One notable omission on the Galaxy A32 5G is the always-on display feature. It is hidden away since it would just waste too much battery on the LCD display.

The side-mounted fingerprint reader will likely be the primary method of unlocking for most users, but you can still use face unlock instead or alongside it. It can be more convenient in certain situations, but it generally is less secure since it's just based on the selfie camera. Iris scanners are sadly a thing of the past now.

Biometrics and security

Another notable change is that pulling the notification shade covers the entire screen underneath, even if there's just one notification card or none at all. Previously, a portion of the screen below the last notification still remained visible, just darkened.

While we're here, the quick toggles can now be edited directly from the plus button at the end of the list instead of going into the menu.

Android 11 includes the nifty Notification history feature. It's accessed from the Settings menu, so it's not within immediate reach, but it's there for those occasions when you dismissed a notification too quickly, and you can't seem to find what it was about. Just make sure to enable it because it's Off by default.

Notifications, quick toggles and notification history

All of the standard layout adjustments and toggles for the quick panel and taskbar are accounted for. Android 11 has a new way of handling notifications for instant messenger apps called Bubbles, and One UI 3 adopts it, too. That's in addition to a previously available similar feature offered by Samsung by the name of Smart pop-up view. You'll find these settings under the 'Floating notifications' submenu, where you can alternatively turn both of them off and opt for the old-school cards-only interface.

Bubbles is an extension of the Conversations feature, another new development. You tap on an icon in the initial incoming message notification. It turns into a conversation that you can then minimize to a bubble, or what was known as a 'chat head' - originally Facebook Messenger's default way of dealing with chats.

Smart pop-up view is one of One UI's lesser-known proprietary features. In the pre-Bubbles days, it used to add the chat head functionality to any application of your choosing. Tapping the hovering 'head' icon opens the app in a floating window, which you can further maximize to fullscreen or minimize again to an icon. Sort of like Bubbles, only slightly different.

Floating notifications

Android 11's refined multimedia controls have made their way on to One UI. You get the active audio playback apps in a stack right below the quick toggles and swiping to the side switches between the apps.

The Media screen was already available on One UI 2.5 pre-Android 11, and it offers similar functionality for picking the output device or using Samsung's Music share feature. The volume control panel has gotten a makeover too, and now the four sliders are vertical instead of the horizontal ones of One UIs past.

Media controls

Samsung's Music Share is just one example of a fairly advanced software feature that originally launched as a flagship one and is now bringing a lot of added value to the mid-range. It fits right in with the new "Awesome' campaign for the Galaxy A family - a fact the PR team has instantly picked up on. The feature allows you to play music through Bluetooth accessories connected to a friend's Samsung phone. It is pretty nifty.

Samsung Music Share

Yet another of the native Android 11 improvements that Samsung also includes in One UI 3 is the ability to pin apps to the top of the sheet with Share options. It's one of those things that make you wonder how come it had to wait until v11 for us to get there. Things are much better now, but still, we'd like to be able to remove some of the options, too, because that list could sure use some decluttering.

One more thing that Google tweaked in this year's release is the permission handling, and Samsung's implemented it in One UI 3. With this version, you will now see a new prompt for permissions every time an app requests it, letting you deny permission, allow it only while using the app, or just for this one time. If an app requires constant access to permission, you also get a fourth option that takes you to a setting page where you can provide it. This is done to prevent the user from accidentally selecting this option while blazing through the permission dialogs.

Share options pinning and permissions handling

The settings menu has seen a subtle but meaningful makeover. Subcategories are made more legible by using a dot separator and extra intervals, while recent searches are now shown as bubbles instead of a list. Additionally, there's a newly added feature to search settings by hashtags - for conceptually related things found in different places in the menu.

One UI settings

The One UI dialer app lends itself to plenty of customization. There are two different layouts for the in-call screen to choose between. You can also set up a background image or video for that screen, though it's going to be all the same for all of your calls - you can't have a different one on a per-person basis.

Samsung dialer

There are plenty of other smaller visual changes scattered all throughout One UI 3.1. Samsung's excellent theme support and rich online selection are present, as well. The same goes for the system navigation options, with a few tweaks and layouts available for gestures, as well as old-school button controls, even the really-old original style, with the back button on the right side.

One UI 3.1 and navigation options

There are plenty of additional extra features in the Galaxy A32 5G as well. Like we said, most things present on the A52 and A72 made it over, like the Edge panels interface, as well as Game launcher - the hub for all your games, which also provides options for limiting distraction when gaming is here to stay as well.

Additional software features

There are some omissions, though. For instance, there is no mention of Bixby anywhere in the UI, which is kind of weird, since you do get it on the A52 and A72. Another thing missing out of the box is SmartThings. Though, the system-level integration for it within the Devices tab in the notification shade is present. All you need to do is download the SmartThings app to get it working.

Samsung Dex is nowhere to be found. But it is absent from the entire Galaxy A lineup, which we get - some things still need to be flagship exclusives. Even in its absence, though, you can still get a lot of its functionality through the Link to Windows feature that has been implemented in cooperation with Microsoft.

Synthetic benchmarks

The Galaxy A32 5G is based on the MediaTek Dimensity 720 5G chipset. It's not a particularly popular part, and this is practically the first time it is passing through our usual set of benchmark tests. That being said, the Dimensity 720 isn't all that different from its Dimensity 700 sibling. Nor the Dimensity 800U, for that matter.

All of these are based on an efficient 7nm manufacturing process and use a pair of Cortex-A76 big cores and six Cortex-A55 ones. In the Dimensity 720 inside the Galaxy A32 5G, these are clocked at up to 2.0 GHz. Oddly enough, slightly lower than both the 800U and the Dimensity 700.

In terms of GPU, all three chips use Mali-G57 cores, with the Dimensity 700 and 800U rocking three cores. For reference, the Dimensity 700 just has two. Speaking of which, the Dimensity 800 is not too dissimilar from the Dimensity 720 inside the Galaxy A32 5G either - it gets an extra GPU core. It has a symmetrical four by four CPU core setup with two bigger cores. That should put the expected performance into perspective. Especially in the CPU department, which we kick things off with.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  2574
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  1910
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  1848
• Realme 7 5G
  1794
• Realme 8 5G
  1784
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780
• Poco X3 NFC
  1777
• Realme 8
  1690
• Realme 8 Pro
  1678
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  1673
• Samsung Galaxy A72
  1627
• vivo V21 5G
  1600
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1599
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  1577
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
  1576
• Poco M3
  1398
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1277
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  1034
• Samsung Galaxy A02s
  495

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  735
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  643
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  608
• Realme 7 5G
  598
• vivo V21 5G
  574
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569
• Realme 8 5G
  569
• Poco X3 NFC
  568
• Realme 8 Pro
  566
• Samsung Galaxy A72
  537
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  534
• Realme 8
  533
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  525
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  505
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
  502
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  361
• Poco M3
  308
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  169
• Samsung Galaxy A02s
  131

There really isn't a major difference between the Dimensity 700, 720 and 800U chips in terms of actual performance numbers either. That applies to the chip found inside the Galaxy A32 5G as well, which is a great thing. It means that everything is working as expected, and Samsung is making the most out of the hardware at hand.

The Dimensity 720 is what we would describe as a solid mid-range option in 2021. In CPU terms, it is pretty comparable to chips like the Snapdragon 720G, 732G, 678 from Qualcomm, as well as the Helio G95. The Snapdragon 690 5G and the 750G 5G tend to score slightly higher on average in tests, but not by a whole lot.

AnTuTu is a bit less favorable towards the particular hardware setup in the Galaxy A32 5G. It is a much more compound benchmark that takes into account other aspects of the device. We do, however, have a theory that a big part of the lower score could be due to the HD resolution of the phone's display.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  453223
• vivo V21 5G
  336699
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  324686
• Realme 7 5G
  318535
• Realme 8 5G
  302059
• Realme 8
  298328
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  295442
• Realme 8 Pro
  286666
• Poco X3 NFC
  283750
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  279579
• Samsung Galaxy A72
  279342
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  261282
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  226561
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  218788
• Poco M3
  177904
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  174332
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  107189
• Samsung Galaxy A02s
  90811

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• vivo V21 5G
  365055
• Realme 8 5G
  361505
• Realme 8
  357488
• Samsung Galaxy A72
  333668
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
  330909
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  222125

A 720p display can have its theoretical advantages in testing too, though, particularly when running on-screen graphics benchmarks. The lower resolution puts less strain on the Mali-G57 GPU. To be fair, this is not exactly representative of real-world performance, though, since good modern game engines are adaptable and tend to scale details and even rendering resolution up and down to accommodate any level of available performance.

3DMark SSE ES 3.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• vivo V21 5G
  3331
• Realme 7 5G
  3163
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  2819
• Poco X3 NFC
  2689
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  2638
• Realme 8
  2610
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  2529
• Samsung Galaxy A72
  2517
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  2166
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1471
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1323
• Poco M3
  1175
• Samsung Galaxy A02s
  438
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  365

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1.0 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• vivo V21 5G
  3050
• Realme 7 5G
  3028
• Realme 8
  2639
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  2609
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  2509
• Poco X3 NFC
  2495
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  2406
• Samsung Galaxy A72
  2395
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  2012
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1372
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1371
• Poco M3
  1106
• Samsung Galaxy A12
  612
• Samsung Galaxy A02s
  489

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  3401
• vivo V21 5G
  1605
• Realme 7 5G
  1589
• Realme 8
  1486
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  1185
• Samsung Galaxy A42 5G
  1105
• Realme 8 5G
  1104
• Realme 8 Pro
  1051
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  1040
• Samsung Galaxy A72
  1031
• OnePlus Nord N10 5G
  811
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  686
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  482
• Poco M3
  368

Unfortunately, we did not manage to run GFXBench on our Galaxy A32 5G review unit since its software trips a "modified or virtualized OS" protection on the benchmark. We aren't quite sure why that is the case, but we just have to live with it and stick to 3DMark.

Its trio of offscreen tuns does, however, conclusively prove that the Galaxy A32 5G is performing as expected in GPU tasks, as well.

All things considered, the Dimensity 720, as found inside the Galaxy A32 5G is not a chart-topping performer by any stretch of the imagination. However, it was never meant to be. It is a solid and modern mid-range product. It has more than enough horsepower to chew through most tasks and is plenty for most users. At the same time, it is based on an efficient 7nm process, which makes good use of the available battery and also has a sensible set of modern features to offer. 5G, of course, being the headlining one, but also things like 4K video capture.